


and anyway it's the same old story

by queenbaskerville



Category: White Collar (TV 2009)
Genre: Backstory, Family, Gen, Minor Peter Burke/Neal Caffrey, Misunderstandings, Not Canon Compliant, One Shot, Short One Shot, implied peter/neal because sometimes u subconsciously compare ur criminal informant to ur wife, it happens!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:07:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29330532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenbaskerville/pseuds/queenbaskerville
Summary: "You know, on my fifteenth birthday, Mozzie made me get braces," Neal says, apropos of nothing.
Relationships: Elizabeth Burke/Peter Burke, Neal Caffrey & Mozzie, Peter Burke & Neal Caffrey, Peter Burke & Neal Caffrey & Mozzie
Comments: 8
Kudos: 69





	and anyway it's the same old story

**Author's Note:**

> i was working on chapter 4 of my other white collar fic when i came up with a headcanon for why neal has such straight teeth when i'd written him in that story as a teenage runaway, and then i had to write it as its own separate little piece. probably goes without saying that i'm inventing my own backstory for neal instead of using the canon one, because i don't like it. 
> 
> i deliberately left it ambiguous as to what season this little fic would take place but i'm thinking season one or two, three at the very latest; peter and neal (and by extension mozzie) are still feeling their way around each other. (if you like, you could place it around the episode in season 3 when el's parents came to visit for her birthday.)
> 
> fic title from ["dogfish" by mary oliver](https://apoemaday.tumblr.com/post/132549957312/dogfish)

"You know, on my fifteenth birthday, Mozzie made me get braces," Neal says, apropos of nothing.

It takes Peter a second to register the change in topic—he'd been complaining about Elizabeth's parents coming to stay for the weekend—but only a second, because when it comes to Neal, he's used to being on his toes.

"Is that so?" he says while the implications of that really register with him. Mozzie had known Neal at fifteen; Neal's parents hadn't been the one making him get braces. Everything Peter knows about Neal before he turned eighteen, Neal has voluntarily shared with him; Neal has not shared very much; Neal has shared more than Peter ever expected him to. When Neal says something, there's always, always something unsaid that Peter needs to pay attention to.

"People with straight teeth are considered more trustworthy," Neal says. "It's better for cons."

He's painting a picture for Peter that Peter doesn't like. Neal, who did not graduate high school, knowing Mozzie at fifteen, preparing for cons at fifteen. Peter imagines Neal—younger, shorter, skinnier—as a runaway or a dropout, parentless, alone in some city, probably hungry, too broke to think about something like dental care unless the one person he has somehow come to know—a paranoid criminal—points out that it will be helpful for scamming people.

Neal, of course, probably doesn't see it that way. He is trying to make some other point.

"You've known Mozzie for a long time," Peter says.

"What're Elizabeth's parents like?" Neal says. He gives Peter a faux-stern look. "And don't say annoying."

"Overbearing," Peter says, and then, after thinking a moment, changes his mind. "Present. Affectionate. Involved."

This was probably not what Neal's experience with parents had been like, if he had any (jury was still out on that one). Alright, fair play, Peter thinks. He is lucky that any dread regarding Elizabeth's parents coming to visit has to do with normal stress, normal son-in-law frustrations, and not any kind of imposition on Elizabeth, no serious harm done to her, nothing she is afraid of seeing them for; Peter is lucky, too, that Elizabeth has parents who do want to visit, not whichever neglectful types had led to Neal's current no-family-ties situation. Neal is not making any assumptions about Peter's own parents, but he's clearly tired of Peter's behavior toward Elizabeth's, who are—despite their incompatibility with Peter's continued sense of sanity—still generally pleasant people. Alright. Message received. He'll quit whining.

Peter doesn't realize that he's gotten it wrong until a week later, when he's having dinner with Elizabeth. He's venting to her about some inane argument he'd gotten into with Mozzie that had snowballed into a near-shouting match— _near_ only because they'd been in public, in one of Mozzie's ridiculous meeting places, and Peter didn't want to attract attention by yelling until his face turned purple.

"What made this different?" Elizabeth says.

"What do you mean?" Peter says.

"You argue with Mozzie all the time," Elizabeth says.

"I know that," Peter says, frustration mounting again.

"I'm just saying, it sounds like it was worse this time than usual," Elizabeth says. "Normally you're better at trying to get along with him, if only for Neal's sake."

Peter's about to defend himself—how can she say it's Peter's fault when she's seen firsthand how Mozzie always drives him crazy—and then it clicks.

The argument with Mozzie had been a typical argument, crescendoing at its typical rate, until Peter had happened to turn his head away in frustration and caught the look on Neal's face—disappointment. It had disappeared in a flash, replaced by the mildly impatient expression he usually wore during these little squabbles, but that had been the moment Peter lost the battle with himself to keep his temper. He hadn't realized why, at the time, but he recognized consciously now what he knew instinctively then—Neal had been disappointed in him, and Peter had felt ashamed about it, and because he hadn't figured out why, he'd turned the shame into anger instead. Anger at Mozzie, which had been apparent, but anger at Neal, too—How can he be a disappointment to Neal for this? What's his problem? Peter argues with Mozzie all the time.

Mozzie had been fussing about Neal's wardrobe. He hated the outfit that the FBI had supplied Neal with for the undercover role he'd be heading for an hour after the meet with Mozzie. Mozzie had been making a huge deal out of nothing, something to do with the belt not matching the shirt, and how if he'd just been properly informed, he could've brought something more in-character. Peter had immediately fired back with the facts that (1) not everything has to be the perfect con and (2) he is a federal agent and not required in any capacity to inform Mozzie of anything whatsoever, up to and including minuscule, inconsequential details of Neal's undercover outfits, and excluding the legal requirement to inform Mozzie of his Miranda rights before he arrests him. Peter can still hear Mozzie's shrill, _Image is everything!_ in response to Peter's infuriated, _A belt is not going to blow his cover!_

_People with straight teeth are considered more trustworthy,_ Neal says in Peter's head, and Peter has a sudden vision of a fifteen-year-old boy, the same skinny, hungry thing he'd imagined a week ago when Neal had told this to him in his office, only this time Peter's thinking of Mozzie, too—paranoid, nervous, afraid Mozzie, who was the only one looking out for that boy, the only one there to get him braces and pick his outfits and prepare him for the worst the world had to throw at him.

Elizabeth's watching Peter with a calm, amused expression, the one she always gets when he's puzzling out a problem with a case at the dinner table—she doesn't need or want him to explain everything going on in his head, but she has complete faith that he will solve it and return to planet earth and to his meal.

He picks up his fork.

"I need some budgeting advice," he says.

After work the next day, Peter stops at the ABC store and then drives to Neal's. They'd closed the case this morning, uneventfully so, but Peter guesses correctly that Mozzie has decided to hover at Neal's anyway. Hovering, in Mozzie-speak, translates to watching _Tiles of Fire_ and drinking all of Neal's expensive wine.

"Peter," Neal says, smiling as usual, and steps aside to let him in. "You staying for dinner?"

"Not tonight," Peter says. "Don't want to interrupt—" he gestures vaguely at the atrocity barely passing as cinema— "all of this important stuff."

"Suit," Mozzie acknowledges resentfully.

"Is that for me?" Neal says.

"It's for Mozzie," Peter says.

Mozzie pauses the movie to turn in his seat on the couch and evaluate the bottle of wine Peter's putting on the table.

"That—doesn't look awful, actually. Or cheap," Mozzie says. He eyes Peter suspiciously. "Did Mrs. Suit help you pick that out?"

"How'd you guess," Peter says wryly.

"Hmm," Mozzie says. "At least I can be relatively certain _she_ hasn't laced it with any mind-control drugs."

"What's the occasion?" Neal interrupts smoothly.

"Whenever Elizabeth's parents are in town," Peter says, "I try to get along with them, for her sake. I'm not always good at it, and they don't always make it easy, but I do try."

"I thought her parents came last weekend," Mozzie says. He frowns at Peter. "Neal, is he speaking in code?"

"Would I do that?" Peter says to Mozzie, but he's looking at Neal.

"You're overthinking it, Moz," Neal says.

But for a moment, Neal had beamed at Peter. Message received.

**Author's Note:**

> i don't think neal thinks of mozzie as a father, but he definitely thinks of him as family, and i wish more fic writers would remember that. ~~also it deeply amuses me to imagine peter burke in a romantic relationship with elizabeth and neal trying to wrap his head around the idea that one of his father-in-laws is mozzie of all people~~


End file.
